The Forward Day by Day Meditation for September 15, 2013

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SUNDAY, September 15 17 Pentecost

Exodus 32:7-14. And the LORD changed his mind about the disaster that he planned to bring on his people.

One of my favorite plays is called, in English, Juliet: A Dialogue about Love. It is, interestingly, a one-woman play that tells the story of Júlia Visky—“Juliet”—a Hungarian prisoner in a Romanian prison camp with her seven children, the youngest of whom is the playwright himself (András Visky). Juliet does not know if she will see her pastor-husband or her home again, and her lines sweep between joy and despair. Her dialogue is, mostly, with God—she and God are on familiar terms, and she is not always particularly happy with the way God is running things. “You brought me here, it wasn’t my idea,” she declares audaciously.

In today’s reading from Exodus, Moses argues for God to change his mind about destroying the people of Israel, and we’re told that “the LORD changed his mind.” The LORD changed his mind! Can you imagine? Moses and Juliet knew God, lived their relationship with God in such a way that they also knew the intimacies and frustrations of being able to argue with a God who is not a cold and distant unmoved mover, but a real and relational presence.